Acronis creates new roles for biz and M&A hotshots

Data protection software supplier Acronis has created two new roles on its executive team: senior vice president in corporate development and SVP in global business development. The move suggests the firm is anticipating a spike in growth and is preparing itself to make a few acquisitions, or even positioning itself to be acquired.

The first role has been handed to Gregg Schor, who comes from an M&A legal services background.

Acronis' release says:

Mr Schor has responsibility for managing M&A activities and business planning for expansion into new international markets, bringing over 20 years of experience working with private and public technology companies and a strong track record for successfully managing complex and international M&A and business development strategies.

Having served as General Counsel and as Director of Operations for companies that have been acquired by Microsoft, IBM and EMC, Mr Schor joins Acronis from General Counsel Solutions, which he founded in 2003 to provide M&A, managed legal and other related services, with an emphasis on the high growth tech sector.

Steve Erdman has joined Acronis in the second position, as SVP for global business development, and he "is responsible for driving the overall business development and routes to market strategy by identifying strategic business opportunities, partnerships, alliances and joint ventures".

Acronis president and CEO Alex Pinchev didn't give much away in his statement: "These strategic development roles will strengthen our ability to fulfil our strategic goals and drive our company to the next phase of growth. We will position our business to maximise the opportunities offered by the explosion of data creation, the acceleration of virtual server penetration and the movement of critical data to public and private clouds.”

Pinchev became Acronis' CEO at the end of November last year, joining from Red Hat, where he was a sales boss. Acronis, which recently inked a reseller deal with Drobo, is being sued for patent infringement by Symantec.

It looks like Pinchev is thinking that there could be consolidation in the data protection software market and wants to be a consolidator or be consolidated. My guess is the former. Acronis's business growth is most likely the goal rather than a business sale. ®